Good Story On Obscure Guy Who Helped Integrate Baseball

[gh]

(fact that was a raging Commie had a bit to do with it)

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... 01&sc=1000

[bad hammy]

I read this excellent article in the paper this morning. Trivia question for those who have not read the article yet: what is the claim to fame (according to this article) of baseball player William Ellsworth "Dummy" Hoy??

[bf]

First (only?) deaf MLB player? Got an old bb card of him.

[noone]

>First (only?) deaf MLB player?

That's too obvious, everybody knows that. Must be more to the question .
Besides, Curtis Pride is deaf.

[Master Po]

>I read this excellent article in the paper this morning. Trivia question for
>those who have not read the article yet: what is the claim to fame (according
>to this article) of baseball player William Ellsworth "Dummy" Hoy??


I think it was because of "Dummy" Hoy that umpires began using the now-familiar hand signals to signal ball, strike, safe, out.

[bad hammy]

> I think it was because of "Dummy" Hoy that umpires began using the
> now-familiar hand signals to signal ball, strike, safe, out.

Correct you are. If you knew that without reading the article you are either a serious baseball scholar, or a person well versed in the history of milestones surrounding deaf folks.

[Dietmar239]

Also, did you know that we adopted the huddle that you see in football from deaf players? Obviously, if two deaf teams are playing each other they can't communicate in the open via sign language and expect the other team to not know what they're saying. They huddled to hide their plays from the other team.

Little known fact that I learned while getting training as a sign-language interpreter.